


Candy Cane

by paperstorm



Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Christmas, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Howling Commandos - Freeform, Jealous Bucky Barnes, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Romance, Unreliable Narrator, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Part 6 of the 12 Days of Stucky Christmas series. Bucky tries his first candy cane.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559701
Comments: 17
Kudos: 80





	Candy Cane

_1943_  
  
Somehow, Christmas comes to their camp, even as the battles rage on around them. Shells drop, guns fire, men cry out. Their surroundings haven’t been quiet for months. But then, it’s December. Nothing can stop time. Not even a war.  
  
Steve hasn’t been here very long. He showed up only weeks ago, appearing like a guardian angel to the dingy room where Bucky had been strapped to a table for long enough that time had lost all meaning. He doesn’t like to think about what happened, there. Won’t be able to carry on, if he dwells on it for too long. They haven’t been out in the field all that many times since Steve saved them all from near certain death in an enemy camp, but plans are being made. Bucky isn’t privy to most of them, but he sees their officers plotting. In the new year, Steve thinks, their unit will be sent out on missions most people will never know about, but that could be crucial to the war effort, if they don’t fuck it all up. Bucky’s concerned they’ll fuck it all up. He doesn’t say as much to Steve. Steve is still himself, underneath the shiny new body, but to everyone else he’s a better version of himself than he ever was, and Bucky doesn’t want to tarnish that with his own doubts.  
  
And he loved Steve first, before any of these people even knew him. All his brand new adoring fans. Bucky loved him more than they would have, if they’d known him before he was Captain America.  
  
One day, Agent Carter waltzes into the mess hall – alright, she doesn’t _waltz_ , but Bucky still can’t bring himself to like her after being forced to watch her flirt with Steve and watch as Steve flirted back – with an armful of precariously stacked boxes. She lays them out on a table near the front of the hall, with a bright smile, beaming at Colonel Phillips. He offers her a smile in return that Bucky interprets as put-on and half-hearted, _if_ that. Maybe quarter-hearted. Maybe less.  
  
Without acknowledging Bucky or anyone else at their table, Steve gets up and goes over to them. Bucky watches him go, and then rolls his eyes and goes back to his plate.  
  
“You sweet on Agent Carter, Sarge?” Gabe teases, elbowing Bucky playfully from his other side. “Pissed Rogers is getting all the attention?”  
  
“No,” Bucky snaps, a lot more rudely than he should have. Gabe is just playing. But Bucky’s in no mood for it. As his heartrate increases, a spot on his thigh throbs where they’d … he stops himself before he thinks about it, and shoves the thought away.  
  
“Mates,” Falsworth says, insistently tapping the table between them. “She brought candy canes.”  
  
Bucky does look up, then. He can barely see her around Steve’s now-broad back blocking the view, but he catches glimpses of Carter unpacking handfuls of red. “What the fuck is a candy cane?”  
  
“You’ve never had one?” Falsworth asks, blinking in surprise. Bucky shakes his head, as do a few others. “Oh, they’re quite nice.”  
  
“You eat them?”  
  
“Yes, it’s candy.”  
  
Bucky squeezes his molars together. He feels like an idiot for being upset at the prospect of being given _candy_ at _Christmas_ , and yet he is. It’s all irrational, and he’s tired today because they were all up early this morning, and Steve is still across the room smiling and laughing with _her_ , and it’s all culminating in Bucky having to ferociously resist the urge to pick up his bowl and hurl it at the opposite wall. She’s stunning, meticulously painted scarlet lips and rosy cheeks and flawless chestnut curls. And she’s far beyond just a pretty picture. She’s strong, and brave, and worth so much more than people give her credit for on appearance alone. Just like Steve.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices them moving. Steve and Carter and a few others start walking towards the long tables, each with a wooden box in their arms, each picking a table and starting to hand the candy sticks out among the soldiers. Steve, of course because Bucky could never be so fortunate, picks a table three down from theirs, and Carter starts at the head of the one where Bucky is sitting about halfway down.  
  
“What are they like?” Morita is asking Falsworth.  
  
“Minty, sweet, all-around spectacular,” he answers.  
  
“You know if they don’t hold up to those glowing reviews, we’re gonna be pissed at you, right?” Dum Dum points out, but he’s smiling.  
  
They’re all smiling, and Bucky wants to throw up. Then he hates himself even more intensely for being the wet blanket snuffing out everyone’s good humor. War, as it turns out and as he should have known before he got here, is hell. Any little moments of happiness should be savored.  
  
As Carter approaches, Bucky tries not to resent the genuinely happy faces along the table as she passes out the candy to the men. They’re hooked at one end, the sticks, like a shepherd’s crook, and striped red-and-white. When she reaches them, she smiles at them as well, and holds out a handful of the candies in her hand for each other them to take. The rest of them do, thanking her profusely, until there is only one left in her perfectly manicured fingers that she offers to Bucky.  
  
“They’re from your government,” she tells him. “I suppose your Mr. Roosevelt imagined them a small token of appreciation, during the holidays.”  
  
“Thanks,” he says. He tries not to spit the word. He takes the cane from her, and then chances a quick glance up at her, and feels briefly badly at the momentary flicker of confusion in her dark eyes at his stony reaction. But it only lasts a breath, before her face arranges itself back into its pretty perfection and she moves on to those sitting behind them.  
  
While the others eagerly unwrap their treats, Bucky pockets his, and goes back to his nearly flavorless stew.  
  
It’s only hours later, back in his sleeping quarters, that he begrudgingly pulls the hooked stick from his pocket and considers it in his hands. Before he can decide whether to unwrap it or crumble it into dust and leave it on Carter’s doorstep, Steve comes into his room. Steve was offered his own room, a private one on the other side of the camp with the officers, but he’d turned it down. Everyone thinks he’s noble because of it. And he is, Bucky supposes. He just isn’t feeling particularly generous to anyone, tonight.  
  
“They’re good, huh?” Steve asks, nodding to the candy in Bucky’s hands. Then he frowns, noticing Bucky’s is untouched. “Oh. You haven’t tried it.”  
  
“Did you?” Bucky asks.  
  
Steve nods. “The war being won would be a better Christmas present, but this was still nice. They’re real tasty.”  
  
Bucky chews at the inside of his cheek between his molars. He sets the candy cane down onto the cot next to his hip. Steve comes over and sits next to him on the other side. When Bucky looks at him, Steve’s hand reaches out and his fingers drag slowly through Bucky’s hair, sliding around the back of his head until they settle, warm and familiar, curled around the back of Bucky’s neck.  
  
“You alright?” he asks softly.  
  
Bucky doesn’t know how to answer. He just shrugs, and Steve’s forehead twists into a frown.  
  
“Buck,” he whispers, shifting closer.  
  
“It’s Christmas in a few days,” Bucky whispers back. He gestures aimlessly into the empty space in front of them. “And we’re … here.”  
  
“I know.” Steve leans in and kisses his forehead.  
  
Bucky turns into it. He soaks it in, tries to absorb it like a sponge. Steve hasn’t done anything, really, to make Bucky think what they had back in Brooklyn is going to change or be done with. They’ve still kissed. They’ve still shared Bucky’s tiny cot. They’ve still satisfied each other with desperate hands and wanton mouths – it’s been far less frequent, but that’s due to circumstances beyond their control, not a decision Steve has made. He’s still murmured softly into Bucky’s lips that he loves him. He’d said it over and over again, the first night they’d had together after being reunited. He’d repeated it like a mantra, like a prayer, as if he’d been miserable every minute they’d been apart. Nothing categorically has changed. But it still feels like everything’s changed. Steve is different, now. He’s tall and he’s strong and broad and he’s classically handsome, and to Bucky, even though it makes bile rise in his throat to admit it in the secret vault of his own mind, that changes everything.  
  
Steve used to need him. This new Steve doesn’t need him at all.  
  
Steve reaches around him, picking up the candy cane from off the wafer-thin mattress. He peels back the plastic wrap, and holds it out. “Try it?” he asks, blue eyes shining. Like the ocean, like the sky on a clear day at Coney Island.  
  
Bucky leans forward and lets Steve slide the tip of it into his mouth, and Falsworth was right. It is delicious. Bucky says as much, once Steve pulls it back. Steve smiles at him, the ghost of his former self still there even though his jaw is squarer than it was. He licks at the candy, and then tilts his head forward for a kiss that tastes like peppermint. Bucky opens his mouth against it, and tries, in his heart, to transplant them back to their apartment. Last Christmas is a year gone, but maybe if he tries hard enough to keep it alive in his mind, he can hope it back into existence so by this time next year, they’re back home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) [or twitter](https://twitter.com/turningthedials) if you want!


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